Internet Business Blog

Cyber Monday

Today had already been a pretty good day (Cyber Monday) for one of my largest clients, TKO Warehouse. Little did we know… it was about to become hectic!

Setting The Stage

Forrest Griffin is an extremely popular Mixed Martial Artist who really made a name for himself on the TUF reality show a few years ago. Since then, he’s excelled as a fighter with a 6W-2L record in the UFC and is a huge celebrity in our sport.

How We Got Lucky

By sheer chance (or luck) we happened to have all of the correct networking pieces in place via Social Networking and Niche Forums.

Forrest Griffin’s 71,000+ MySpace friends received a bulletin that this particular MMA Clothing website not only carries his exclusive (signature series) Xtreme Couture t-shirt, but it’s also running a HUGE Cyber Monday sale!

… Within two minutes, chaos ensues. There were/are so many visitors on the website that the server slows. This couldn’t have happened on a better day. Talk about great PR - and a great opportunity to make some sales.

Magic Myspace Formula:
Celebrity + Myspace Bulletin + Promoting Your Brand/Site = $$$

This particular ecommerce website is very new. In fact, it’s less than three months old. That being said, it’s already beating 3/4 the real competition out there in both traffic and sales. Being so new, this was the first huge influx of potential customers (50+ at a time) that we’ve received for the site, and it has converted very well..

I suspect that visitors will trickle in over the next couple of days. More importantly, it should lead to the creation of a higher brand awareness with his fans, and the sport of MMA in general.

What You Can Take Away From This

Though this post was about the MMA Store specifically, I think that we can all learn a valuable lesson or two from this in not only Internet Marketing but General Business as well:

1. Keep your eyes and ears open. If I hadn’t answered a question on a niche forum, this traffic/brand awareness boost may have never happened.
2. Stay Persistent. This is especially important because if I hadn’t been persistent about visiting the particular forum, I would have never seen the question to begin with… thus never having the opportunity to answer it.
3. A little luck goes a long way. … and it’s bound to happen sooner or later. If you play the game long enough, rewards will come.

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Last night I posted an article written by Daniel J. Briere entitled: “Ever-lasting Habits of Highly Profitable Webmasters”. The article was such a hit that I decided to post part #2 of this series just a few minutes ago, which you can read here.

These two articles outline nine habits that are essential to becoming successful on the internet and I highly recommend everyone take a few minutes to read through them. For the intermediate/advanced webmaster, they may be review but even the best need a refresher from time to time.

Part #1 introduces the following concepts:
Off Site Backups
Independent Domain Registration
Good Client-Host Host-Client Relationship
Regular Website Updates
Prompt Reply to Emails

Part #2 touches on:
Making Use of SEO
Exchanging Links with Related Websites
Examining (and Conforming to) Customer Needs
Keeping Things Simple

Like I mentioned earlier, both part #1 and part #2 of this series are excellent material for Internet Business rookies as well as the entrepreneurs and webmasters who’ve been in the industry for awhile. Many of us could write a white paper on each topic discussed in the article, and depending on reader interaction I may do just that. Let me know your thoughts!

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“Hi everyone…Bill Cobb here, President of eBay North America. We at eBay Inc. are always exploring opportunities in new technologies and businesses –especially ones that pioneer new communities and instill trust.

I’m really happy to share the news with you that eBay Inc. has just acquired StumbleUpon (www.StumbleUpon.com). StumbleUpon offers a unique finding experience that introduces people to interesting and relevant web content that has been recommended by others in the community with similar interests. StumbleUpon is a great way to explore the Internet when you’re not sure what you are looking for, or when you want to make discoveries around your particular interests.

Our intent is to support the growth and evolution of this community-based business, and StumbleUpon will run as a separate business unit within eBay Inc. Although there are no definite plans to share at this time, as the site evolves, we’ll be exploring the possibilities for synergies between StumbleUpon and eBay marketplaces, Skype, and PayPal. We’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Sincerely,

Bill Cobb
President, eBay North America”

Let’s everyone welcome Ebay to the Social Networking / Web 2.0 train!

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